


supernova

by wraithes



Category: Red Dead Redemption
Genre: Friends to Lovers, M/M, collection of short drabbles, slouching towards inevitable sadness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-27
Updated: 2018-12-27
Packaged: 2019-09-28 19:20:17
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,346
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17188859
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wraithes/pseuds/wraithes
Summary: Eagle Flies always joked that in the beginning, their god must have fooled around and split one star into two, while Paytah knows this to be an irrefutable truth.





	supernova

The first time something sparks, like the glitter of striking flint, they're bathing in the river - they have done this their whole lives, since the time Eagle Flies could toddle around and since Paytah could sit against the shallow bank of the river's thinnest part without having to be held up by his mother. But things change, bodies change - Paytah is perched on a rock, drawing shapes in the sand with the edge of the stick, self-conscious now about his body and how it's betrayed him. He's becoming a man at last, but with two years behind Eagle Flies, he's starting to feel that pressure - they've always done everything together, they've alway been compared, and how could he compare to that limber body, the lean muscles and that wicked grin. Looking across the river bank, he hears Eagle Flies whooping at him, standing stark naked against the backdrop of the dark forest, bathed in perfect moonlight. 

 

_ "Come on in!" _

 

He's shouting, unaware of just how beautiful he is - it's always been like that, and lately Paytah has come to hate it, but in that moment, he sees something else. He sees all of his flesh, all of him at once, and his stomach twists. A little more prying and raucous prodding, and he's undressing as well, stepping into the cold water as Eagle Flies crosses the current to meet him. They're close, too close, their bodies gravitating towards each other - there’s that damn invisible thread, the one Paytah and Eagle Flies have both felt their entire lives, winding them tighter and closer together with little that can be done to stop it. 

 

_ "Are you afraid of drowning?"  _

 

Eagle Flies asks before all at once, their naked bodies are beneath the surface, engulfed in dark as the chief's son holds the other down against the shallow plains of river mud and stones beneath the stream’s current. Paytah's got water in his mouth, in his lungs, the taste of wet earth flooding him as his eyes start to burn. He reaches out for anything, grasping for anything at all, but all he knows is Eagle Flies - fistfulls of water could never hold a candle to the sturdy flesh of his friend and other half of his soul, everywhere at once in that moment in the dark stream. Paytah thinks he might die before he hears that laugh, that fucking know-it-all, do-as-I-say laugh, soft in his ear. 

 

_ "You know I'd never let anything happen to you,"  _

 

Those words are all he remembers as he's pulled up from the water again, hands still firm at Eagle Flies' waist. He's not afraid anything a while after that, other than that feeling of heat that burns him every time he looks towards Eagle Flies. It’s like he’s swallowed the sun. 

  
  


* * *

 

 

Eagle Flies pulls Paytah up onto his horse before leaving the reservation at breakneck speeds, heading towards the cliff-sides where everything is more quiet, more contained, everything framed by the beauty of ancient stone carved up by gods. Paytah keeps laughing, his hands gripping hard at Eagle Flies' sides, digging into the muscle and bone he can feel so taut and skilled as he moves the beast through the wilderness.

 

_ "It's been too long," _

 

Paytah whispers in Eagle Flies' ear, amusement flitting in his nervous voice - he's nervous every time they're this close, like it's the first time over and over again. Like it’s back at the hilltop, and they’re fifteen, and they’re colliding and expanding like stars, lips on lips and tongues stitching and weaving together, crafting something bigger and greater than either of them could ever be by themselves. They are two halves of one whole, and Paytah whispers this to Eagle Flies as they pass an elk standing tall at the treeline, like a silent protector of the love that must never be known to anyone else. 

 

Before they can make it to the crest of the cliff, Paytah has slipped his hands between Eagle Flies' thighs, tracing over the inseam of his pants, feeling how his hips rock forward against the horse and into his hand - there's real power there, and Paytah has missed it. As soon as Eagle Flies halts and posts his horse to the nearest tree, he's lifting Paytah off the mare's back, taking him into his arms as if he's made of glass - so fragile, so impermanent, always half-dream and at risk of disappearing between his fingers. Paytah smiles as his toes touch the ground, his body immediately pushing into the chief’s son until they're howling with laughter, rolling in the tall grasses where no one would ever dare to look for them. The laughter eventually fades into quiet breathing and half-choked whimpers as shirt buttons are popped open, pants are undone, and Paytah's palms are wet with dirt and sweat. 

 

* * *

 

Eagle Flies spoils Paytah - he's his  _ tsiki, _ his sun and his moon and all of the stars. Eagle Flies has come to understand the myths about gods cutting their limbs off for loved ones, the ones where wives turn into bears and kill all in their path when their husbands are slain in war. Eagle Flies is always giving to him what he thinks he needs - Paytah eats first, Paytah gets the heavier blanket to sleep with, Paytah gets the first say in plans, even if Eagle Flies would never admit it to anyone else. But sometimes Paytah hungers on his own - he crawls up between Eagle Flies' legs when he's reclined near the fire, saying nothing but staring up with the reflection of flame and embers dancing across his dark and contemplative gaze. Paytah is slow and so sure as he begins to breathe huffs of warm air through Eagle Flies' trousers, pressed into the fabric with need. Paytah spoils Eagle Flies right back when it matters most, panting hard at the junction between groin and thigh, trembling hands pulling down at the hem until he can plant kisses at the tip of Eagle Flies' length. It's always so slow with them - they don't care how long it takes, how many minutes or hours are spent in the grass, how many stars might burn out and die by the time they're done. Paytah is content to devour the universe between Eagle Flies’ quaking thighs, drinking up the moondust and falling back against the hides of the lodge floor, sated and content as a small child milk-drunk off its mother. 

 

* * *

Sometimes Eagle Flies presses his face into the tanned hide that covers the dirt floor, as if he is breaking himself in half for worship - the muscles of his back and the strain of his thighs as he invites the other inside of him is all illuminated by flame. Flickering light shakes the image of it all, hues of red and black painting across heaving ribs and the tremble of his well-worn heels as he digs his toes into the dirt for leverage. 

 

_ "Have me,"  _

 

Is all the young man can manage, his eloquent tongue of a leader always tied in knots when it comes to this. Paytah, when he takes him, moves like a spirit. Soft and barely there, he drapes himself over Eagle Flies like a blanket - he hides Eagle Flies, folds the chief's son into him, and grinds him into the hide. Eagle Flies loves the ache, the twinge of pain that shoots through him, his mouth agape and eyes rolled back just enough to strain the nerves behind his lids. Paytah fucks into him, slow and restrained, almost calculated, his hands smoothing over shoulders, biceps, wrists, until their hands are weaved together. Smoke curls in the corner, cedar burning hot and heavy in their lungs as Paytah moves in him, deeper and deeper until he swears they're no longer two people, but something different, something new and old and godlike. 

 

Paytah is buried in his lover when he starts to feel as if they are making up for time they have not yet lost. He grips a little tighter and braces himself for a future unknown.

 

_ “Never leave me.”  _

  
  
  
  



End file.
